Society's Child by Janis Ian

Author:Janis Ian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

TEN

Love Is Blind

Love is blind

Love is only sorrow

Love is no tomorrow

since you went away

The next two years went by in a blur. Aftertones came out in March of ’76 to surprisingly good reviews. It went gold within weeks, so I guess the shareholders were happy. With two hit albums in a row, Jean was busier than ever, and she started to drink heavily, sometimes to the point of incoherence. It was no use phoning her after business hours anymore.

I asked Ina, “Why would someone work so hard for so many years, and just when we’re at the top, start blowing it?”

Ina cocked her head and responded, “When you’re at the top, the only thing you can see is how far you can fall.”

I toured, and toured, and toured. By the end of April I’d covered the whole of the United States and Canada, every major and secondary market. I put my foot down, refusing to replay all those markets in the same year. Instead, I asked my agency to book me into tertiary markets, the places no one else bothered playing. Small towns, small halls. We’d make less money, but at that point, I didn’t care. I really wanted to see my country, and I did. We’d roll into town on our bus, and the locals would proudly show me their new high school gym, or tell me stories about the town’s history. It was great.

We played Louisiana, near the heart of Cajun country, and got invited to a local bar after the show. The place was full of musicians, and for two or three hours we struggled to keep up with the fiddlers. Between songs, the owner served up delicious sausages from the bar. We ate our fill, and asked for more. He shrugged and made a call. A few minutes later, an ancient woman staggered through the door, back bent under a huge tray of sausage. I realized everything I’d been eating was homemade, and asked the owner what went into them. “Oh, dem boudin, maybe possum, maybe ’gator, maybe rat. Who know? Who care!”

We had the next night off, and a bunch of us went to see Elvis. It was sad. The last time I’d seen him, I was with Carol Hunter at the taping of his black leather TV special, back in 1968. He was magnificent, and I came away a fan. Now he was a pathetic, bloated wreck, even forgetting the words to “Love Me Tender.” Scotty Moore had to bring him the lyric, and Elvis could barely read it, let alone sing it. I whispered to someone, “He’s stoned—look at him! High as a kite!” The woman behind us slugged me with her purse, saying, “Elvis doesn’t do drugs, shame on you! He’s a personal friend of President Nixon’s, you know!”

I was rarely home, and when I was, I worked full-time on outside projects. Beth was wonderfully supportive, but she had no life outside of mine. She came on the road with me. She stayed in the hotel room with me.

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